Hey Friend
This week was quite diverse. It started off in Cincinnati shooting promotional and episodic videos for an upcoming conference I’m MC’ing. While there, I went to a friends house to watch the super bowl. I didn’t care about either team, but I think Mahomes is such a fun player to watch, I was rooting for him. Upon my return home, we had a snow storm that shut the city down for a day.
I got to spend time, in person, with a few people I really really dig. I wrote, edited and reviewed content for our new website coming online at the end of the month. I started the search for a graphics/marketing person for the hA team. I ran a bunch because I’m running a half marathon March 1st. Overall a fun, productive, variety-packed week.
I can’t give away many details, but while I was in Cincinnati I made a Big Ask of the CEO and his wife. I needed to have them let me invade their personal space in a rather intimate way for one of the videos. Not surprisingly, the initial response was hesitation, leaning towards “no”. However, the night before the shoot we were at a dinner together. The matriarch remarked “you remind me of Uncle Don.” By the end of the night we had a green light for the shoot.
They had hired a video team to do the shooting. I gelled quickly with the lead guy, David. Though we just met, we communicated well, understood each other, laughed a lot and were super efficient. I realized after our two days were done, he reminded me of Tray, my good friend from childhood.
Familiarity breeds accelerated trust!
I’m not Uncle Don and he wasn’t Tray. Yet because those loose correlations were consciously or unconsciously connected, it triggered a willingness to trust. That’s rather fascinating because trust is the essential component in all human relations. For it to deepen rapidly based on an entirely different person than the one being extended confidence, is curious.
I benefited from all the years of Uncle Don’s goodwill, good humor and being a good person by sheer coincidence. My mannerisms, personality, communication style echo his and in the right light, I sorta look like him. Boom. Access granted!
What if Uncle Don had been a scoundrel? A devious manipulator who hoarded all the desserts at family gatherings? Who broke the nieces and nephews toys when he played with them? Who was mean and gave bad gifts? How then would the equating association impact my chances of getting that video shot?
If Uncle Don was NOT a good dude, she wouldn’t have articulated the parallel. She would have thought “There is just something about Greg I don’t like.” Again, not actually based on me! Wild and interesting.
Why do we trust our intuition?
As you know from last week, I’ve got the brain on my mind. It’s the culprit in this scenario. Its lethargic approach prefers offering shortcuts rather than working to build whole new profiles. “Greg = Uncle Don. My work here is done.”
Stereotypes are reasonable.
People aren’t that unique.
Certain characteristics generate certain behaviors.
Personalities are predictors.
As they say in Thailand, Same-Same, but Different.
All of this leads me to ponder…
… Is there a way to hack other people’s intuition so they extend trust more quickly? If there are positive commonalities between people currently in their life and me, how could I discover that?
… Is there a way to hack my own intuition so when my brain wants to take the easy path of good/bad association I force it to dig deep on the actual person I’m interacting with instead of previous individuals with similar traits?
I’m sure it’s a neurological ROI proposition. Why take all the time and make all the effort if it turns out, I am a lot like Uncle Don? Just go with that instinct and most of the time it’s true, I suspect?
What if this week you…
1. Identified people in your world who reminded you of someone from your past and discern how that’s effected your impression of them?
2. Counted how many times you had a “gut-check” and used your intuition in any situation?
3. Ask your co-workers if you remind them of someone from their past?
4. See how many stereotypes you apply in one week?
We as individuals like to think we’re unique. There is no one else in the world quite like us. True and not true. It threatens our ego to acknowledge “I’m a lot like Uncle Don, so if you know him, you basically know me.” If it can expedite trust amongst people, I’m all for it. How to have that point of reference is still a mystery? Guess we’ll stick to our intuition for now.
Have you ever interacted with someone who reminded you of someone else, but turned out to be entirely different? Has someone ever told you that you reminded them of someone, but then didn’t offer if that was good or bad? What do you call your intuition? Have you consciously tried to develop it? You can consciously say Hello.